“Happy Birthday to You”, also known more simply as “Happy Birthday”, is a song that is traditionally sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person’s birth. According to the 1998 Guinness World Records, “Happy Birthday to You” is the most recognized song in the English language, followed by “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”. The song’s base lyrics have been translated into at least 18 languages. The melody of “Happy Birthday to You” comes from the song “Good Morning to All”, which has been attributed to American siblings Patty and Mildred J. Hill in 1893, although the claim that the sisters composed the tune is disputed.
Patty Hill was a kindergarten principal in Louisville, Kentucky, developing various teaching methods at what is now the Little Loomhouse; her sister Mildred was a pianist and composer. The sisters used “Good Morning to All” as a song that young children would find easy to sing. The combination of melody and lyrics in “Happy Birthday to You” first appeared in print in 1912, and probably existed even earlier.
None of the early appearances of the “Happy Birthday to You” lyrics included credits or copyright notices. The Summy Company registered a copyright in 1935, crediting authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R. R. Forman. In 1988, Warner/Chappell Music purchased the company owning the copyright for US$25 million, with the value of “Happy Birthday” estimated at US$5 million. Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claimed that the United States copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to Warner. In one specific instance in February 2010, these royalties were said to amount to US$700. By one estimate, the song is the highest-earning single song in history, with estimated earnings since its creation of US$50 million. In the European Union, the copyright of the song was set to expire no later than December 31, 2016.
The American copyright status of “Happy Birthday to You” began to draw more attention with the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft in 2003, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer specifically mentioned “Happy Birthday to You” in his dissenting opinion. American law professor Robert Brauneis, who extensively researched the song, concluded in 2010 that “It is almost certainly no longer under copyright.” In 2013, based in large part on Brauneis’s research, Good Morning to You Productions, a company producing a documentary about “Good Morning to All”, sued Warner/Chappell for falsely claiming copyright to the song. In September 2015, a federal judge declared that the Warner/Chappell copyright claim was invalid, ruling that the copyright registration applied only to a specific piano arrangement of the song, and not to its lyrics and melody.
History of the song
The origins of “Happy Birthday to You” date back to at least the late 19th century, when two sisters, Patty and Mildred J. Hill, introduced the song “Good Morning to All” to Patty’s kindergarten class in Kentucky. Years later, in 1893, they published the tune in their songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten. Kembrew McLeod stated that the Hill sisters likely copied the tune and lyrical idea from other popular and similar nineteenth-century songs that predated theirs, including Horace Waters’ “Happy Greetings to All”, “Good Night to You All” also from 1858, “A Happy New Year to All” from 1875, and “A Happy Greeting to All”, published 1885. However, Brauneis disputes this, noting that these earlier songs had quite different melodies.
It is likely that teachers and students spontaneously adapted the published version of “Good Morning to All” to celebrate birthdays in the classroom, changing the lyrics to “Happy Birthday” in the process. However, the complete text of “Happy Birthday to You” first appeared in print as the final four lines of Edith Goodyear Alger’s poem “Roy’s Birthday,” published in her book A Primer of Work and Play, copyrighted by D. C. Heath in 1901, with no reference to the words being sung. The first book including “Happy Birthday” lyrics set to the tune of “Good Morning to All” that bears a date of publication is from 1911 in The Elementary Worker and His Work, but earlier references exist to a song called “Happy Birthday to You,” including an article from 1901 in the Inland Educator and Indiana School Journal. Children’s Praise and Worship, edited by Andrew Byers, Bessie L. Byrum and Anna E. Koglin, published the song in 1918. In 1924, Robert Coleman included “Good Morning to All” in a songbook with the birthday lyrics as a second verse. Coleman also published “Happy Birthday” in The American Hymnal in 1933.
In 1935, several specific piano arrangements and an unused second verse of “Happy Birthday to You” were copyrighted as a work for hire crediting Preston Ware Orem for the piano arrangements and Mrs. R. R. Forman for the lyrics by the Summy Company, the publisher of “Good Morning to All”. This served as the legal basis for claiming that Summy Company
In 1935, several specific piano arrangements and an unused second verse of “Happy Birthday to You” were copyrighted as a work for hire crediting Preston Ware Orem for the piano arrangements and Mrs. R. R. Forman for the lyrics by the Summy Company, the publisher of “Good Morning to All”. This served as the legal basis for claiming that Summy Company legally registered the copyright for principle song, as well as the later renewal of these copyrights. A later 2015 lawsuit would find this claim baseless. That specific new lyrics that also included the full text of “Happy Birthday to You”, was a copyright on the derivative work. A 1957 acquisition of C.C. Birchard & Company saw Summy Company becoming the Summy-Birchard Company. A later corporate restructuring in the 1970s saw Summy-Birchard becoming a division of a new company: Birch Tree Group Limited.
Warner/Chappell Music acquired Birch Tree Group Limited in 1988 for US$25 million. The company continued to insist that one cannot sing the “Happy Birthday to You” lyrics for profit without paying royalties: in 2008, Warner collected about US$5,000 per day (US$2 million per year) in royalties for the song. Warner/Chappell claimed copyright for every use in film, television, radio, anywhere open to the public, and for any group where a substantial number of those in attendance are not family or friends of whoever is performing the song. Professor Robert Brauneis cited problems with the song’s authorship and the notice and renewal of the copyright, and concluded: “It is almost certainly no longer under copyright.”
In the European Union, copyright lasts for the life of the author(s) plus 70 years; since Patty Hill (the last surviving author) died in 1946, the copyright in these countries would expire following December 31, 2016. Germany does not apply the rule of the shorter term to U.S. works.
2013 lawsuit
On June 13, 2013, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Nelson filed a putative class action suit in federal court for the Southern District of New York against Warner/Chappell in the name of her production company, Good Morning to You Productions. As part of a documentary she was making about the song and its history, she had paid US$1,500 to secure the rights. Her complaint relied heavily on Brauneis’s research, seeking not only the return of her money but all royalties collected by the company from other filmmakers since 2009. A week later a similar case was filed in the Central District of California, Rupa Marya v. Warner Chappell Music Inc, Case No. 2:13-cv-04460. Five weeks later, Nelson refiled the case there, and the cases were combined. As of April 2014, Warner’s motion to dismiss had been denied without prejudice, and discovery began under an agreed plan with respect to Claim One, declaratory judgment as to whether “Happy Birthday to You” is in the public domain. The Motion Cut-Off as to Merits Issues on the Claim One deadline was November 7, 2014. After that, the court was expected to rule on the motion for summary judgment as to the merits issues on Claim One. A jury trial was requested.
On July 28, 2015, one day prior to a scheduled ruling, Nelson’s attorneys Betsy Manifold and Mark Rifkin presented new evidence which they argued was conclusive proof that the song was in the public domain, “thus making it unnecessary for the Court to decide the scope or validity of the disputed copyrights, much less whether Patty Hill abandoned any copyright she may have had to the lyrics.” Several weeks prior, they had been given access to documents held back from them by Warner/Chappell, which included a copy of the 15th edition of The Everyday Song Book, published in 1927. The book contained “Good Morning and Happy Birthday”, but the copy was blurry, obscuring a line of text below the title. Manifold and Rifkin located a clearer copy of an older edition, published in 1922, that also contained the “Happy Birthday” lyrics. The previously obscured line was revealed to be the credit “Special permission through courtesy of The Clayton F Summy Co.”. Manifold and Rifkin argued that because the music and lyrics were published without a valid copyright notice as was required at the time, “Happy Birthday” was in the public domain.
Warner/Chappell disputed the evidence, arguing that unless there was “necessary authorization from the copyright owner”, the “Happy Birthday” lyrics and sheet music would still be subject to common law copyright as an unpublished work, and that it was unknown whether the “special permission” from the Summy Company covered “Good Morning to All”, “Happy Birthday”, or both, thus alleging that the publication in The Everyday Song Book was unauthorized. The company also argued that it was not acting in bad faith in withholding the evidence of the 1927 publication.
On September 22, 2015, federal judge George H. King ruled that the Warner/Chappell copyright claim over the lyrics was invalid. The 1935 copyright held by Warner/Chappell applied only to a specific piano arrangement of the song, not the lyrics or melody. The court held that the question of whether the 1922 and 1927 publications were authorized, thus placing the song in the public domain, presented questions of fact that would need to be resolved at trial. However, Warner/ Chappell had failed to prove that it actually had ever held a copyright to the lyrics, so the court was able to grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs, thus resolving the case. Warner has yet to announce whether it will appeal.
Some initial news sources characterized the decision as ruling that the song was in the public domain, but the decision did not go so far, holding only that Warner/Chappell did not prove they owned the copyright. However, because there are no other claimants to the copyright, and the copyright to the melody long ago expired, the plaintiffs suggested that the song was de facto in the public domain.
Prior to the lawsuit, Warner/Chappell had been earning $2 million a year licensing the song for commercial use, with a notable example the $5,000 paid by the filmmakers of the 1994 documentary, Hoop Dreams, in order to safely distribute the film.
On February 8, 2016, Warner/Chappell agreed to pay a settlement of $14 million to those who had licensed the song, and would allow a final judgement declaring the song to be in the public domain. The settlement is pending approval by King, with a final hearing scheduled in March 2016.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
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